CA vs CS: Pass Rates, Fees and Pay in India

Choose CA if you want to work with accounts, audit, tax and financial reporting. Choose CS if you want to work with company law, board procedure and compliance. The question that matters is which work you will do for the next ten years, not which exam is rumoured to be easier.

Direct Entry lets you skip Foundation and register at Intermediate. ICAI's course guide requires 55% in a graduation or postgraduation in Commerce, or 60% in any other discipline. Passing the Intermediate of ICSI or of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICMAI) also qualifies.

Sources: ICAI, new scheme of education and training; ICSI, practical training; ICSI, restructured CSEET notice, which makes the entry test centre-based from June 2026. For what the entry test now covers, see our guide to the CSEET syllabus.

Pass rates mislead because ICAI and ICSI do not report results the same way. ICAI also publishes a separate "both groups" rate for candidates who sat both groups together, while ICSI reports per group. Only the per-group figures compare like for like.

Sources: ICAI results for Intermediate and Final; ICSI result announcement for the June 2026 session, declared on 25 August 2026. CA Foundation has no groups. ICAI reports 20.09% passing (18,124 of 90,217) for May 2026.

What the table shows:

• CS passes a higher share of those who sit. Executive groups ran 6 to 7 points above Intermediate groups (17.41% against 10.25%, and 22.19% against 16.11%). Professional groups ran about 21 and 9 points above Final groups (32.69% against 12.00%, and 29.49% against 20.49%).
• CS is not a soft option. A 17.41% pass rate means 82.59% of candidates did not clear Executive Group 1.
• Pooling the CA groups gives one fairer figure. This is our model, built from ICAI's counts of those who passed and those who appeared. Intermediate: (9,350 + 10,372) ÷ (91,237 + 64,381) = 12.67%. Final: (6,555 + 8,725) ÷ (54,606 + 42,573) = 15.72%.
• ICAI's "both groups" figures measure something else. It reports 8.47% of Intermediate and 14.07% of Final candidates clearing both groups in one sitting. That counts only students who attempt both groups together, so do not set it against a single-group rate.

Pass rate measures who sat the paper, not how hard it will be for you. A student weak at calculations can find CS more passable, and a student who dislikes long legal answers can find the reverse. That is why the tests at the end of this page matter more than any percentage.

As of October 2026, official fees including exam fees come to ₹84,500 for CA via Foundation and ₹54,000 for CS via the entry test, before coaching and books. By Direct Entry CA costs ₹74,000, and for a CS candidate exempt from CSEET the total is ₹50,000. These totals are our sums.

Working: CA is ₹10,500 + ₹34,200 + ₹39,800. CS is ₹9,000 + ₹21,400 + ₹23,600. Direct Entry drops Foundation: ₹34,200 + ₹39,800 = ₹74,000. For CS, replacing the CSEET with the ₹5,000 exemption fee gives ₹5,000 + ₹21,400 + ₹23,600 = ₹50,000.

The Professional ₹20,000 is ICSI's education fee (₹19,000) plus a ₹1,000 pre-exam test fee. It does not include exams, which are charged per group on top. The Executive figure leaves out ICSI's optional ₹500 journal.

Both sets assume one on-time attempt per exam. Each retake costs the exam fee again: ₹1,500 for a CS Executive group and ₹1,800 for a Professional group. For CA, exam fees are ₹1,500 for Foundation, ₹1,500 per Intermediate group and ₹1,800 per Final group.

Sources: ICAI exam fee notice, 2 May 2026; ICAI course guide for registration fees; ICAI, ICITSS and AICITSS fees; ICSI fee structure and June 2026 instructions. Our CA course fees guide breaks down the CA side further, and our guide to CS Executive registration, route and real cost does the same for CS.

CA training lasts 2 years. CS requires an Executive Development Programme and 21 months of practical training. Training is where the two careers actually diverge. ICAI's new scheme, effective 1 July 2023, set CA practical training at 2 years, and ICSI sets out its requirements on its training page.

In our view, training tells you more about the career than the syllabus does. A CA trainee spends two years inside an audit, tax or finance team. A CS trainee spends 21 months in a company secretarial department, learning board meetings, filings and compliance calendars. If that daily work does not appeal, the exam stages around it will be a long way to walk.

On the evidence we could find, yes at the top end, and CA is also the better documented. ICAI's report on its 61st campus placement programme for newly qualified CAs records 204 organisations, an average pay of ₹12.86 lakh per annum (LPA) and a highest domestic package of ₹29 LPA. That is a placement-round average, so it covers only candidates placed through ICAI's rounds and is not the pay of every new CA. Our CA salary guide looks at what a newly qualified CA takes home.

More recent rounds have pushed the ceiling higher. ICAI's 64th programme brochure records a highest package of ₹32.33 LPA in the December 2025 to January 2026 round. Treat that as a ceiling, not an expectation. We found no ICAI figure for pay by years of experience.

For CS, we found no ICSI-wide average. What exists are single-employer offers: a 2023 ICSI campus drive notice for the National Stock Exchange of India listed an annual cost to company of ₹8.00 lakh. One employer is not a market average. Our page on company secretary salary evidence in 2026 sets out what else is known.

Demand for CS comes from the law. Section 203 of the Companies Act, 2013, with its rules, requires listed companies and public companies with paid-up capital of ₹10 crore or more to appoint a whole-time company secretary. Our view is that CS pay therefore follows the size and listing status of the employer more than the qualification itself.

Before you decide on pay alone, compare the roles you would actually apply for. A CS earning less than a CA in the same company is usually a difference between two roles, not between two qualifications.

Run these five tests and record the result of each. The pass lines are our recommendation. Tests 1 to 3 each point towards CA, CS or neither. Tests 4 and 5 are checks on the route you lean towards, not votes.

Tally tests 1 to 3. If two of the three point to one qualification, register for that route, once tests 4 and 5 pass. If they split, or none point anywhere, talk it through before paying any fee.

iProledge publishes this page and coaches for both qualifications. Call +91 7899084146 or use Contact Us to book a free demo class and bring your test results. We coach for CA and for CS, so we will price the route you actually chose.